Week in Review: Tigers vs. Ralph Lauren Crew (July 30-August 6)
This week has been a big one for Tiger athletes, least of all because of some impostor-Princeton rowers hitting the boats at Lake Carnegie. The much-anticipated Ralph Lauren fall collection photoshoot, which took place on campus in early May, is finally online, so if you're missing the Dinky or Blair Arch or the courtyard outside the U-Store, just play it on repeat. (We'd also like to let all nervous 2016ers know that real Princeton students are much happier than the models pretending to be Princeton students).But the Ralph Lauren rowers have nothing on our real Tiger rowers, who have brought in a medal of each color in the past week. Caroline Lind '06 helped the US women's eight win their second Olympic gold in a row on August 2, and Andreanne Morin '06 and Lauren Wilkinson '11 brought home silver medals for Canada in the same race. The women's eight gave Princeton its first medalists of the London Olympics. On August 4, Glenn Ochal '08 and the US men's four came away with bronze.
Saturday also brought victory for the US women's epee team (that's fencing), including its two Princeton members, and the team walked away from the competition with bronze medals. Maya Lawrence '02 gave the women a two-point lead going into the final match, and although Susannah Scanlan '14 competed only in the first two rounds and not the finals, she was there to celebrate with her teammates.All Princeton eyes have been focused on Donn Cabral '12 these past few days after he qualified for the 3,000-meter, hurdle- and jump-laden steeplechase only a week before the race was to take place. He led the pack for a bit--at the 1,000-meter mark, Cabral was in first place--but at the race's end his finishing time of 8:25.91 clocked him in at eighth place. Another thriller was the women's soccer match between the US and Canada, lasting nearly 123 exciting minutes (the US won, 4-3). Diana Matheson '08 (Canada) got fouled a lot.
Of course, future Princeton athletes will have even more support than any of these Tiger Olympians got from their alma mater. Ralph DeNunzio '53, a Nike Inc. board member since 1988, is the raison d'etre of the newly-established Ralph DeNunzio and Nike Endowment Fund for Princeton Athletics. The endowment, meant to honor DeNunzio for his years of dedication to the company, is funded by an initial gift of $700,000 from Nike and goes, of course, to supporting Princeton athletic teams and programs.It took four years, but Princeton is finally back at the top of Forbes' annual ranking of America's top colleges. Apparently, the ranking focuses on "educational outcomes, not reputations," but a good reputation never hurt anyone, either. And look, our shiny, $53,934/year price tag is actually less expensive than all the other schools until #29 Colorado College (okay, the Military Academy doesn't count)!And, finally, some non-sports related news. Woody Woo students received an email titled, "On behalf of President Tilghman - A Message to the WWS Community" on the morning of July 30 announcing the appointment of Cecilia Rouse as the new dean of WWS. As expected, Rouse is ridiculously accomplished--hopefully she's not too serious to join in the pool party when 2013 turns in their theses (but those Ai Weiwei sculptures might scare her, and the seniors, away).Also, we know that this has been up for a while, but 2016, check out your Abridged Orientation Calendar! If that's abridged, we don't want to know what the full calendar, available starting August 15, looks like.